語言與思維：英文與中文母語者在表情符號使用上的差異 - 政大學術集成

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(1)07 1 Department of Radio and Television College of Communication National Chengchi University. Master’s Thesis. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Does Language Shape Thought? English and Mandarin Speakers’. ‧. Usage of Emoticons as Non-Verbal Cues in Communication. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. i n U. v. e n g cYi-Ting h i Tan Professor Ling-Yuan Lin Professor Tsung-Jen Shih. 4 July 2015. !. !. ! !. !.

(2) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Acknowledgement I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisors, Professor LingYuan Lin and Professor Tsung-Jen Shih who gave me the freedom to explore on my own and at the same time, the guidance to recover when my steps faltered. They have always been a source of support throughout this journey, with their immense knowledge, enthusiasm and patience. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis committee member, Professor Jih-Hsuan Lin for her encouragement and insightful comments that helped me focus on my ideas. Most importantly, none of this would have been possible without the unconditional love and support of my family, especially my parents who went to great. 政治大. lengths to give me an education and gave me the freedom to pursue my own dreams. I. 立. hope I have made them proud.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. I!. i n U. v.

(3) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. II!. i n U. v.

(4) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Abstract Existing literature on the cross-cultural use of emoticons often discuss how styles of emoticons vary by comparing countries such as Japan or Korea with the United States. However, these countries differ both in terms of their culture as well as the language used in the country. Thus, there remains a dilemma in distinguishing whether the effects of cultural background or language plays a greater role in determining the style of emoticons a person uses. This research explores this issue by comparing the use of emoticons between users from Singapore and Taiwan. Both countries have similar cultural background but differ in terms of their first language. By focusing on the difference of language and holding cultural background as a. 政治大. constant, results indicated that users from both countries do have a difference in. 立. preference for emoticons style. While the former predominantly use horizontal. ‧ 國. 學. emoticons, the latter prefer vertical emoticons instead. Such difference has also resulted in different representation of the eyes and mouths of emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users. In addition, it has also been found that language. ‧. background has an effect on a person’s ability to recognize and interpret emoticons. y. Nat. used by natives from the other culture. This situation was more prominent among. io. sit. Singaporean participants as they were found to be less capable in recognizing and. n. al. er. interpreting emoticons commonly used by their Taiwanese counterparts. The. i n U. v. implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.. Ch. engchi. Keywords: computer-mediated communication, cross-culture, emoticons, language, thought. !. !. !. III!.

(5) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 1 About Singapore and Taiwan……………………………………………………… 5 Location………………………………………………………………………. 5 Size…………………………………………………………………………… 5 Population……………………………………………………………………. 5 Culture………….…………….……….……………………………………… 6 Ethnic Groups………………………………………………………………… 6 Language…………….……………….…………….………………………… 7 Internet and Smartphone Penetration Rate…………………………………… 7. 政治大. Internet Use……………………….………….…….………………………… 8. 立. Summary………………….………………………….………………………. 8. ‧ 國. 學. Literature Review…………………………………………………….……………. 10 Defining Emoticons………………………………….……………………… 10 Horizontal style…………….………….……….…………………… 10. ‧. Vertical style…………….…………….………….………………… 11. y. Nat. Japanese style………………………………………………. 11. io. sit. Korean style………………………………………………… 11. n. al. er. Chinese ideographic style….………….………….………… 12. i n U. v. Graphic icons…………………………………………….…………. 12. Ch. engchi. Differences between Emoticons and Emoji………………………………… 12 Role of Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication….……….…… 13 Emoticons function to affect interactions positively……….….……. 14 Emoticons function to influence message meanings…….….………. 15 Emoticons function to manage impressions………………………… 15 Emoticons function to regulate interaction…………….…………… 16 Culture and Emoticons……………………………………………………… 16 Factors shaping the style of emoticons.….……………….………… 17 Display rules……………….……………………….………. 17 Hofstede’s dimensions of culture…………………………… 18 Two different styles of emoticons….……….………………………. 19. !. !. !. IV!.

(6) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Language and Emoticons…………………………………………………… 22 Space and time in English…………………….……….……………. 24 Space and time in Mandarin Chinese…….…………………………. 25 Effects of Language Structure on Interpretation……………….…………… 29 Methodology…………………………………………………………….…………. 31 Pilot Study……………………………………………….………….………. 31 Survey Questionnaire………………………………………..……………… 33 Sample…………………………………………………….………… 34 Measures………………………………………………….………… 34 Usage rate…………………….……….……….…………… 34. 政治大. Emoticons style……………………………………………… 35. 立. Use of emoticons……………………………………………. 37. ‧ 國. 學. Frequency of emoticons use………………………………… 37 Commonly used language.………………………………….. 37 Proficiency in English………………………………………. 37. ‧. Proficiency in Mandarin Chinese………….…….…………. 38. y. Nat. Focus Group Discussions…………………………………………………… 39. io. sit. Study population……………………………………………………. 39. n. al. er. Description of focus groups………………………………………… 40. i n U. v. Focus group questions………………………………………………. 40. Ch. engchi. Data analysis…………………………….……………….…………. 41 Results……………………………………………………………………………… 44 Habits and Attitude…………………………………………….…………… 50 Exposure to Characters and Accessibility to Emoticons……………………. 53 Discussion………………………………………………….………………….……. 58 Emoticons Style…………………………………………………….………. 58 Eyes and Mouths of Emoticons………………………….……….…………. 60 Number of keyboard characters…………………………….………. 61 External influences……………………………………….……….… 61 Variants……………………….……………….……………. 63 The Importance of Context…………………………………………………. 65. !. !. !. V!.

(7) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Behavior……………………………… 66 The Effects of Language on Everyday Life………………………………… 68 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research….…….……….………… 69 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….………. 72 References……………………………………………………….……….………… 74 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………. 85 Appendix A – Survey on Emoticons (Pilot Test)..………….……….……… 85 Appendix B –. ……………………….……… 86. Appendix C – Survey on Emoticons (Actual Questionnaire)………………. 87. 治 ……………………….… 93 政 Appendix E – Survey on Emotions.……………….…………………….… 100 大立 ……………………………………………… 102 Appendix F – Appendix D –. ‧ 國. 學. Appendix G – Focus Group Discussion Consent Form…………………… 104 Appendix H –. …………………….…….……….… 105. ‧. Appendix I – Questions for Focus Groups………….…….……….………. 106 Appendix J – Results from Focus Groups………….……………………… 107. y. Nat. sit. Appendix K – Table 8. Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six. er. io. Universal Emotions among Singaporean Users…….……… 116. al. Appendix L – Table 9. Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six. n. v i n UniversalC Emotions among Taiwanese Users.…….………. 118 hengchi U. !. !. !. VI!.

(8) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS List of Figures Figure 1. Different Emoticon Usage by Countries………….………………………. 23 Figure 2. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of Front and Back Terms in English………….…………….….…………..…………….…….………. 25 Figure 3. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of. (Front) and. (Back) in. Mandarin and their English Translations………….……….…….………. 26 Figure 4. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of. (Up) and. (Down) in. Mandarin and their English Translations………………………………… 27 Figure 5. Average Usage Rate of Horizontal and Vertical Emoticons per User for. 治政 Figure 6. A Built-In List of Emoticons Found on the Chinese 大 Keyboard but Not 立 on Apple’s iPhone………….…………….…… 55 on the English Keyboard All 12 Situations……………………………………………….………… 44. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 7. Japanese Manga “Oishinbo” and American Comic “Peanuts”.….…….…. 63 Figure 8. Anime Characters with a Sweat Drop and Angry Veins….……………… 65. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. VII!. i n U. v.

(9) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS List of Tables Table 1. Two Different Styles of Emoticons: Horizontal (Popular in Western Countries) and Vertical (Popular in Eastern Countries).….………….…… 20 Table 2. Preliminary Results Showing the Bivariate Relationship between Variables…………………………….…………….…………….………… 39 Table 3. Results of t-test on Emoticons Style (Horizontal and Vertical) by Country……………………………………………….……….…………… 45 Table 4. Design of Eyes in Emoticons Used by Singaporean and Taiwanese Users……………………………………………….…………….………… 48 Table 5. Design of Mouths in Emoticons Used by Singaporean and Taiwanese. 政治大. Users…………………………………………….…………….…………… 48. 立. Table 6. Factors to Predict the Type of Emoticons Style………….…….…….……. 57. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Table 7. Results of t-test on Language Proficiency by Country……………………. 57. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. VIII!. i n U. v.

(10) 1!. ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS Introduction Emoticons. in. computer-mediated. communication. (CMC). are. often. underexplored. With the emergence of CMC, it has helped to break down geographical barriers by enabling communication over long distances. People have the opportunity to communicate from opposite ends of the globe, expand their social networks, and form close interpersonal relationships. The increasing number of people adopting CMC as a mode of communication shows that the majority of people. 政治大 particularly among younger generations (D’Costa, 2011). However, there are two 立. today are comfortable enough to use these communicative tools on a daily basis,. ‧ 國. 學. sides to every coin. Before the rise of CMC, people rely primarily on face-to-face (FTF) interaction. Non-verbal cues such as body language and facial expressions both. ‧. play a significant role in FTF interaction as it tells more about what one is trying to. sit. y. Nat. express and is critical to interpreting the emotional state of others. It is estimated that. io. al. er. such cues take up 93% of our everyday communication (Mehrabian, 1971). As CMC. v. n. tools replace some forms of FTF interaction, the nature of communication has been altered (Walther, 1996).. Ch. engchi. i n U. One major difference between FTF communication and CMC is that immediate physical presence is needed for the former while it is not in the latter (Park, 2013). In terms of text-based CMC, such as emails, web postings, and discussion forums, as one is unable to view the other person, there is a lack of nonverbal cues such as body gestures and facial expressions. The absence of non-verbal information means that “certain information cannot be fully transferred” (p. 4). As a result, utilizing other ways of expressing intended emotions in CMC becomes desirable.. !. !. !.

(11) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 2!. In order to solve the problem of the lack of non-verbal cues in CMC, the use of icons to express emotions has become a substitute for non-verbal cues used in FTF interactions (Walther & D’Addario, 2001). It has been assumed that until the advent of the emoticons, individuals had limited ways to indicate the subtle mood change, tell jokes, use irony, slip in a pun or become bitingly sarcastic (Godin, 1993). Emoticons are “graphic representations of facial expressions” (Walther & D’Addario, 2001, p. 324) embedded in electronic messages.. 政治大 enhance the exchange of information by “providing social cues beyond what is found 立. The use of emoticons has been especially common in CMC as it is able to. ‧ 國. 學. in the text of a message” (Derks, Bos, & Von Grumbkow, 2007, p. 843). Emoticons, when incorporated into texts, serve as important functions during interactions as it. ‧. “adds nuance, shading, and depth of meaning” (Frank, Maroulis, & Griffin, 2013, p.. sit. y. Nat. 55) that words alone are hard to convey. They also help to clarify the tone of textual. io. al. n. displays in FTF interaction (Walther & D’Addario, 2001).. Ch. engchi. er. messages and emotional intentions of the sender which is similar to non-verbal. i n U. v. Even though emoticons have been described as a “universal symbolic language” (Azuma, 2012, p. 61), which implies that it can be intelligible to people all around the world, many studies have pointed out that the ways emoticons are constructed in texts do in fact, differ from country to country (Park, Baek, & Cha, 2014; Park, Barash, Fink, & Cha, 2013). In particular, there have been mixed results regarding how styles of emoticons differ according to a person’s cultural background and language. There are two kinds of emoticon styles – horizontal (tilted 90 degrees to the left) and vertical (not tilted sideways) (Park et al., 2013). In terms of cultural background, some researchers have noted that styles of emoticons employed by users. !. !. !.

(12) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 3!. living in Western cultures differ from those living in Eastern cultures (Park et al., 2014). For example, Westerners usually employ horizontal style emoticons whereas Easterners employ vertical style emoticons. While some believed that geography matters, other researchers have stated that language has a higher impact in determining the style of emoticons (Park et al., 2013). That is, for countries where English is in common usage along with local languages, users utilized horizontal style emoticons as in predominantly English speaking countries.. 政治大 emoticons vary by comparing countries such as Japan or Korea with the United States 立 Previous cross-cultural studies on emoticons have discussed how styles of. ‧ 國. 學. (e.g. Park, 2013; Yuki, Maddux, & Masuda, 2007). However, these countries differ both in terms of their culture as well as the status of English in the country. For. ‧. instance, Japan and Korea are representatives of the Eastern culture while the United. sit. y. Nat. States is a representative of the Western culture. In addition, unlike the United States. io. al. er. which is an English-speaking country, both Japan and Korea are neither an English-. v. n. speaking country nor English being in common usage along with local languages.. Ch. engchi. i n U. Thus, there remains a dilemma in distinguishing whether the effects of cultural background or language plays a greater role in affecting the style of emoticons a person uses. In order to clarify this issue, this research will focus on language and hold cultural background as a constant. The purpose of this study is to explore the cross-cultural use of emoticons. According to the theory of linguistic relativity, language influences its respective speakers’ perception of their world, so that speakers of different languages may be accustomed to a certain way of thinking and writing depending on the structure of language they use (Hoijer, 1954). By comparing two Asian countries, Singapore and. !. !. !.

(13) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 4!. Taiwan, both with different status of English in the country, this research aims to understand the effects of language on cognition; to see if a certain style of emoticon is an attribute to the language a person uses and how well a person from another culture is able to interpret emoticons used by the natives of a particular culture.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(14) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 5!. About Singapore and Taiwan This section aims to give some background information about Singapore and Taiwan, the two countries that will be examined in this research.. Location Singapore and Taiwan (formerly known as “Formosa”) are countries located in the northern hemisphere. Singapore is located 137 kilometers north of the equator. 政治大 (Department of Statistics, 2014a). Singapore is separated from Malaysia by the Straits 立. and is situated at the end of the Malayan Peninsula between Malaysia and Indonesia. ‧ 國. 學. of Johor and from Indonesia by the Singapore Strait. Taiwan is located 2,600 kilometers north of the equator and sits astride the Tropic of Cancer, off the. ‧. southeastern coast of mainland China and is separated by the Taiwan Strait. sit. n. al. er. io. Size. y. Nat. (“Geography”, n.d.).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Singapore has a total land area of 718.3 square kilometers and measures 50 kilometers from east to west and 26 kilometers from north to south (Department of Statistics, 2014a). Taiwan has a total land area of 35,980 square kilometers and is 160 kilometers wide at its narrowest point and 242 kilometers in length (“Geography”, n.d.).. Population In 2014, Singapore’s total population was 5.47 million with a population density of 7,615 people per square kilometer (Department of Statistics, 2014a).. !. !. !.

(15) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 6!. Taiwan’s total population stands at 24.4 million and it’s average population density is 642 per square kilometer. In Taipei (capital of Taiwan), population density increases to 9,600 people in every square kilometer (World Population Review, 2015).. Culture The terms “Eastern culture” and Western culture” are used very broadly (Choudhary, 2014). In terms of geography, Singapore and Taiwan are both Eastern. 政治大 Europe (Khan, 2013). This includes East Asia (comprising of China, Hong Kong, 立. countries. Countries that belong to the Eastern world are those that are located east of. ‧ 國. 學. Macau, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan) South Asia (comprising of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan. ‧. and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (comprising of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor,. sit. y. Nat. Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam). io. al. er. (Khan, 2013). Although cultures of countries in the Eastern part of the world are quite. v. n. different from each other, they are relatively closer to each other than the countries. Ch. engchi. i n U. from the Western part of the world (Choudhary, 2014).. Ethnic Groups The four ethnic groups of the Singaporean population include Chinese, Malay, Indian, and others (Eurasians and Asians of different origins). They each take up 76.2%, 15%, 7.4%, and 1.4% of the whole population respectively (Department of Statistics, 2014b). As for Taiwan, 98% of the population consists of Taiwanese (including Hakka) and mainland Chinese, and the remaining 2% comprising of indigenous people (UReach Toronto, 2014).. !. !. !.

(16) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 7!. Language The Singapore government recognizes four official languages: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. The national language is Malay, while English is mainly used as the business and working language. Chinese dialects used in Singapore include Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese. On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese is the only official language of Taiwan. Taiwanese Hokkien, commonly known as “Taiwanese”, is a variant of Hokkien spoken by about 70% of. 政治大 Members of the Hakka Chinese subgroup speak the Hakka language and the 立. the population. Taiwanese is often seen as a dialect within a larger Chinese language.. ‧. ‧ 國. Taiwan”, n.d.).. 學. Formosan languages are the ethnic languages of the aboriginal tribes (“Visiting. sit. y. Nat. Internet and Smartphone Penetration Rate. io. al. er. According to the Internet Telecommunication Union (2013), the Internet. v. n. penetration rate in Singapore and Taiwan is estimated at 73% and 80% respectively.. Ch. engchi. i n U. Also, as of 2014, Singapore reports the highest smartphone penetration in the world at 85% (Mumbrella Asia, 2014). Taiwan, on the other hand, witnessed a smartphone penetration rate of 65.4%, and it is expected to increase to 76.3% by the end of 2016 (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, 2014). Brown and Cantor (2000) coined the concept of “perpetual linkage” which refers to the tendency of being constantly connected with each other through some form of technology. What has made “perpetual linkage” possible is that, for example, with a smartphone, users are able to connect to Wi-Fi or cellular data where they can perform activities such as accessing email, text messaging and the use of social media. !. !. !.

(17) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 8!. (instant messaging (IM) and social networking sites (SNSs)) (Dimmick, Ramirez, Wang, & Lin, 2007). Such media enable its users to ““extend society” beyond the limitations of FTF interaction” (p. 796).. Internet Use According to Statista (2014a, 2014b), 96% of the number of Internet users in Singapore between the ages of 25 and 34 and 88% of the number of Internet users in. 政治大 within this age range in Singapore and Taiwan are the highest users of Internet as 立. Taiwan between the ages of 25 and 34 were accessing the Internet everyday. People. ‧ 國. 學. compared to users from other age groups who use the Internet daily. In terms of the amount of time spent using the Internet, Singaporean users. ‧. were found to spend an average of 316 minutes (5 hours and 16 minutes) on laptops. sit. y. Nat. and desktops and 116 minutes (1 hour and 56 minutes) on mobile devices daily (Aziz,. io. al. er. 2014). Internet users in Taipei spend an average of 213 minutes (3 hours and 33. v. n. minutes) online using their laptops and desktops and 197 minutes (3 hours and 17. Ch. engchi. i n U. minutes) on their smartphones per day, 55 minutes longer than the average of 142 minutes (2 hours and 22 minutes) used worldwide (Redfield, 2014).. Summary To sum it all up, many similarities can be found between Singapore and Taiwan. Firstly, both Singapore and Taiwan are Eastern countries and in terms of ethnic groups, majority of the population in Singapore and Taiwan are ethnically Chinese. Both countries also have high Internet and smartphone penetration rate, meaning that people are constantly connected electronically with one another. In. !. !. !.

(18) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 9!. addition, the similar Internet usage pattern also suggests that young people in Singapore and Taiwan are heavy technology users. However, one significant difference between Singapore and Taiwan is the type of language used in the country. While English is regarded as the first language for the former, Mandarin Chinese is the only official language for the latter.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. !. !. !. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(19) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 10!. Literature Review Defining Emoticons The word “emoticon” is derived from the words “emotion” and “icon”, suggesting that by using a combination of symbols, punctuations and keyboard characters, little icons are created and inserted into texts to convey a person’s emotion or attitude (Unicode, 2014). Professor Scott E. Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg created the first emoticon on September 19, 1982 when he sent. 政治大 19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) 立. the following message to the school’s online bulletin board:. ‧ 國. 學. From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at CMU-20c>. I propose the following character sequence for joke markers:. ‧. :-). sit. y. Nat. Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that. io. al. er. are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use. n. :-( (Baron, 2009, p. 109). Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Fahlman’s post, the use of emoticons in texts would help distinguish serious posts from jokes. It adds an emotional flavor by allowing people to express their emotions in text-based communication. Emoticons appear in three different forms – horizontal style, vertical style and graphic icons. The following paragraphs will discuss more about the way each type differs from one another in greater detail. Horizontal style. Horizontal emoticons are those whereby faces are turned 90 degrees to the left (e.g. :)). This emoticon in its normative form has a colon sign as the eyes and one mouth (Park et al., 2013). In this case, the mouth is denoted with a closed parenthesis and it represents a smiling face expressing joy or happiness. Such. !. !. !.

(20) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 11!. emoticons are typed using the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) keyboard characters. ASCII is a scheme that encodes “128 specified characters – the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and a blank space” (Shirey, 2007, p. 17). Vertical style. The main thing that differentiates the vertical from the horizontal type is the orientation of emoticons. In this case, emoticons are not rotated. 政治大 down into three categories – Japanese style, Korean style and Chinese ideographic 立 and employ a vertical style. Emoticons under this criterion can be further broken. ‧ 國. 學. style (Roebuck, 2012).. Japanese style. Japanese emoticons come in two different forms. Firstly, basic. ‧. Japanese emoticons are also made up of ASCII characters (e.g. ^^) (Tomic, Martinez,. sit. y. Nat. & Vrbanec, 2013). The normative form is defined by the shape of the eyes and by. io. al. er. default does not contain a mouth. However, in cases where the normative form. v. n. without a mouth has an ambiguous meaning (e.g. TT), a mouth is included in the. Ch. engchi. i n U. normative form (e.g. T_T) (Park et al., 2013). This emoticon represents a crying face and is made using three characters, out of which one is repeated. The other form of Japanese emoticons are often more complicated because they contain Cyrillic alphabets and other foreign letters and symbols to create even more complicated expressions, many of which cannot be reproduced in ASCII (e.g.. ) (Tomic et. al., 2013). This emoticon represents embarrassment. Korean style. Korean emoticons have their own unique style as they are made up of Korean letters called Jamo (Tomic et al., 2013). Countless number of emoticons. !. !. !.

(21) 12!. ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. can be formed with the combination of multiple Jamos (e.g. ㅠㅠ). In this case, the emoticon shows a crying face where the vowel Jamo ㅠ is used to represent tears. Chinese ideographic style. Chinese ideographic style emoticons usually “represent a concept or idea rather than a particular word or speech sound” (Kelz & Hodic, 2014, p. 251). For instance, the Chinese character. which means bright, has. taken on a life on its own because the way the character is constructed looks like a facial expression. It is often used to signify sadness, frustration, shock or amusement. 治 means convex, is often used on the 政 which 大. (Chao, 2009). In addition, the character. 立. Internet as an emoticon to express a gesture of flipping someone off (Chao, 2009).. ‧ 國. 學. Graphic icons. The third type of emoticons are graphic icons that can be. (e.g.. ‧. found in IM programs such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype and Gtalk ). By typing in horizontal emoticons (e.g. :)), most programs will. y. Nat. io. sit. automatically convert symbols into graphical emoticons (Hall, 2011). Although such. n. al. er. keyboard combination can be used across various IM applications, graphic icons. Ch. i n U. v. generally vary between platforms. For instance, the smiley graphic icons available on. engchi. Yahoo Messenger are not identical to the ones offered by MSN Messenger.. Differences between Emoticons and Emoji Emoticons should not be confused with the term “emoji”. Although both terms are often used interchangeably in our everyday conversations, there is a clear distinction between them. Emoji are pictographs most frequently associated with cellular phone usage and they include images other than faces, such as weather, vehicles and buildings, food and drink, and animals and plants (e.g.. !. !. !. ) (Unicode,.

(22) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 13!. 2014). While emoticons represent a broad category of icons that are formed through various combinations of keyboard characters, emoji only include specific icons (Musa, 2014). On April 8, 2015, Apple added more than 300 new emoji characters to its existing 845 miniature images on the emoji keyboard (Williams, 2015). The emoji keyboard was first introduced into Apple’s iPhone since the firmware 2.0 update in 2008 to be downloaded as an app and was only made available for the Japanese market (Blagdon, 2013). However, with the release of iOS 5, the new. 政治大 as the emoji keyboard no longer needs to be downloaded as an app but just needs to 立. operating system in late 2011, the emoji keyboard made their real international debut. ‧ 國. 學. be enabled instead (Blagdon, 2013). Millions of people now have access to this standard set of emoji characters that can be inserted while typing text messages,. ‧. emails and on SNSs. However, it is important to note that Apple’s iOS, Google’s. sit. y. Nat. Android, and Microsoft’s Windows software, along with SNSs such as Facebook and. io. n. al. er. Twitter each interpret the emoji characters with slight difference.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Role of Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication CMC is any form of communication between two or more individuals through the Internet or a network connection. CMC comes in three different forms – video, audio and text, and may occur either synchronously (in “real time”) or asynchronously (delayed) (Roberts, Smith, & Pollock, 2005). In terms of text-based CMC, since it lacks non-verbal elements such as the ability to see a person’s facial expression and hear the tone of voice, the absence of such cues would mean that it might lead to miscommunication. It has been found that. !. !. !.

(23) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 14!. facial expressions and the tone of voice are beneficial in that they assist in meaning making of a message beyond the actual words being uttered (Park, 2013). The social presence theory states that social presence is the sense of awareness of the existence of an interaction partner (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Social presence is a critical attribute by which man comes to know and think about other persons, their characteristics, qualities, and inner states. Communication media differ in their degree of social presence and that these differences play an important role in. 政治大 of social presence and it is “disruptive for understanding the content and nature of 立 the way people interact. The social presence theory posits that CMC has a low degree. ‧ 國. 學. messages” (Tossell, Kortum, Shepard, Barg-Walkow, & Rahmati, 2012, p. 659) since non-verbal cues, common in FTF interaction are filtered out of CMC.. ‧. Emoticons function to affect interactions positively. Byron and Baldridge. sit. y. Nat. (2007) found that utilizing correct capitalization and including smiley-faced. io. al. er. emoticons in email messages was associated with more favorable impressions of. v. n. senders than those who did not capitalize or include emoticons. Yoo (2007) also. Ch. engchi. i n U. found similar results whereby participants reported that they liked the sender more, believed the sender liked them more, and perceived significantly more immediacy, affection, similarity, and depth when messages contained emoticons. Apart from favorable impressions, the use of emoticons has also led to other positive outcomes. For example, Kalyanaraman and Ivory (2006) found that when participants read messages believed to be written by experts, messages with emoticons enabled the participants to perceive the experts as friendlier and more competent in his or her field of study. In the same report, the presence of emoticons. !. !. !.

(24) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 15!. also positively affected cognition, as participants’ memory scores were higher during conditions with emoticons present. Emoticons function to influence message meanings. Emoticons were incorporated “as visual cues to augment the meaning of textual messages” (Rezabeck & Cochenour, 1998, p. 201). Studies conducted on the roles of emoticons in textual communication indicated that emoticons are capable of emphasizing the meaning, enhancing people’s interpretation and simplifying electronic messages. An emoticon. 政治大 a smiling face that represents happiness, it does not need any accompanying text. 立. without any text can convey a feeling (Adams, 2013). To illustrate, the emoticon :) is. ‧ 國. 學. Also, Lo (2008) has found that users reading text messages with emoticons are significantly better at interpreting the precise meaning of the author than those. ‧. reading messages without emoticons. He asserted that “when emoticons are added in. sit. y. Nat. the same context, the receiver’s perception of the message starts to significantly. io. al. er. change” (p. 597). Thus, emoticons may influence the meaning of messages in ways. n. that are critical to interpretation.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Emoticons function to manage impressions. Emoticons were introduced into CMC to substitute the absence of non-verbal cues and as a way to manage impressions in this cue-less environment. In a study conducted by Attan, Bolong, and Hasan (2010), they found that CMC users managed their impressions by using emoticons, as users believe that the use of emoticons in texts would make them seem as a person with a pleasant disposition. Politeness can also be managed with the use of emoticons. Since office employees have to “offer advice, use directives and request, criticize, agree and disagree on a daily basis” (Darics, 2010, p. 131), the use of emoticons was found to be able to maintain polite impressions and relationships. !. !. !.

(25) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 16!. with colleagues and thereby improving employee productivity at the workplace (Darics, 2010). Emoticons function to regulate interaction. In order to compensate for the absence of an immediate physical presence of a conversational partner, the use of emoticons in CMC enables a receiver to better understand the feeling or mood of the sender (Wei, 2012). Emoticons carry out parallel functions the way non-verbal cues do in FTF communication (Derks, Fischer, & Bos, 2008). In other words, emoticons. 政治大 Other researchers have also claimed that the emoticons functioned as more 立. are seen as the paralanguage of CMC (Marvin, 1995).. ‧ 國. 學. than just non-verbal cues. Dresner and Herring (2014) noted that “emoticons are used not as signs of emotion but rather as indications of the illocutionary force of the. ‧. textual utterances that they accompany” (p. 84). For example, the use of a winking. sit. y. Nat. emoticon can be used to indicate that the writer is joking. Clearly, joking is not an. io. al. er. emotion but a type of illocutionary force of what has been textually said (Dresner &. v. n. Herring, 2014). As such, emoticons help to convey an important aspect of the. Ch. engchi. i n U. linguistic utterance they are attached to – what the user intends by what he or she types (Dresner & Herring, 2014).. Culture and Emoticons Knowing the importance of emoticons, people have adopted the use of emoticons to facilitate their communication and it has gradually evolved to become part of almost all forms of CMC. Utilizing emoticons in texts has become an everyday practice for people throughout the world. Emoticons not only improve communication but also “serve as non-verbal surrogates, suggestive of facial expression, and they. !. !. !.

(26) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 17!. may add a paralinguistic component to a message” (Derks et al., 2007). However, researchers have found that styles of emoticons vary among people. Such difference can be traced back to the way in which culture influences how a person expresses his or her emotions. In this section, we will discuss how emoticons vary according to the Western and Eastern culture. We would expect users from Singapore and Taiwan to have the same emoticons style since previous literatures state that Easterners would use vertical emotions, whereby there is an emphasis on the eyes of such emoticons. 政治大 Singapore and Taiwan, to see if the style and representation of emoticons used in 立 style. The research questions will address this issue by examining the users from. ‧ 國. 學. CMC are similar in these two countries due to the influence of culture. Factors shaping the style of emoticons.. ‧. Display rules. Display rules refer to “culture-specific rules that govern how,. sit. y. Nat. when, and why expressions of emotions are appropriate” (Nevid, 2012, p. 286). In a. io. al. er. study of American and Japanese college students, participants watched graphic films. v. n. of surgical procedures, either by themselves or in the presence of an experimenter.. Ch. engchi. i n U. The students’ facial expressions were secretly videotaped as they viewed the films. Results showed that when the students were by themselves, both Americans and Japanese showed facial expressions of disgust, as expected (Nevid, 2012). However, when the participants watched the films in the presence of the experimenter, the two groups displayed different responses (Nevid, 2012). American students continued to show disgust on their faces, but the Japanese students showed facial expressions that were more neutral, even somewhat pleasant (Nevid, 2012). The reason for the change in facial expression for the Japanese and not the American students lie in the different display rules of the two cultures. As the Asian norm states that one should not openly. !. !. !.

(27) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 18!. express negative emotions toward the respected elders (in this case, the experimenter), any negative emotions can only be expressed with subtle and implicit cues (Nevid, 2012). Americans typically do not honor this display rule; hence, they expressed their true emotions whether they were alone or with someone else (Nevid, 2012). Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. Dutch cultural anthropologist, Geert Hofstede conducted a study to see how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. He conducted detailed interviews with employees within a large multinational. 政治大 identified five dimensions and rated the 53 countries with values of 0 to 100 for each 立 corporation, IBM, in 53 countries (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov 1991). Hofstede. ‧ 國. 學. dimension. His five dimensions of culture include Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity, and Confucian. ‧. Dynamism.. sit. y. Nat. In terms of the Individualism-Collectivism dimension, using the above study. io. al. er. of Japanese and American college students watching graphic films of surgical. v. n. procedures as an example, America has scored 91 on the individualism scale while. Ch. engchi. i n U. Japan only has a score of 46. In Hofstede’s study, a low score on the dimension would mean that the country is closer to a collectivist society (Hofstede et al., 1991). Collectivistic cultures tend to be group-oriented, impose a large psychological distance between ingroup and outgroup members, and ingroup members are expected to have unquestioning loyalty to their group (Hofstede et al., 1991). In a conflict situation, members of the collectivistic cultures are likely to use avoidance, intermediaries, or other face-saving techniques (Hofstede et al., 1991). Collectivistic cultures emphasize family and work group goals above individual needs or desires (Hofstede et al., 1991). Conversely, members of individualistic cultures do not. !. !. !.

(28) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 19!. perceive a large psychological distance between ingroup and outgroup members (Hofstede et al., 1991). They value self-expression, seek speaking out as a means of resolving problems, and are likely to use confrontational strategies when dealing with interpersonal problems (Hofstede et al., 1991). Individualistic cultures emphasize personal achievement regardless of the expense of group goals, resulting in strong sense of competition (Hofstede et al., 1991). Two different styles of emoticons. Some cross-cultural psychologists have. 政治大 in the individualism-collectivism dimension. For example, Westerners (people living 立 noted that emoticon usage varies according to users’ cultural background, especially. ‧ 國. 學. within individualistic cultures) favor a horizontal style as in :-), while Easterners (people living within collectivistic cultures) employ a vertical style as in ^_^ (Yuki et. ‧. al., 2007). A study conducted by Park et al. (2013) examined cultural differences in. sit. y. Nat. the style of emoticons on Twitter based on complete data of tweets from 2006 through. io. al. er. 2009, which contained information from approximately 54 million users and all of. v. n. their public posts. Results showed that users from Western and Eastern countries. Ch. engchi. i n U. employed different emoticons style. Horizontal style emoticons are popular among users in the Western countries whereby such emoticons “emphasize the mouth for expressing emotion and commonly use the colon sign for the eyes” (p. 467). Different mouth shapes are used to “express affect (e.g. positive, negative) and meaning (e.g. happy, sad, surprise)” (p. 467). On the other hand, vertical style emoticons, popular among users in the Eastern countries “emphasize the eyes for expressing emotion. The underscore character is commonly used for the mouth, while various characters are used for the eye shapes to capture affect and meaning” (p. 468). Table 1 shows the results of their findings.. !. !. !.

(29) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 20!. Table 1 Two Different Styles of Emoticons: Horizontal (Popular in Western Countries) and Vertical (Popular in Eastern Countries) Horizontal. :). :(. :o. :P. :D. (expression based on the. :)). :))). :-). :-(. :-[. mouth shape). ;). :’(. :*(. ¿:(. =:-). Vertical. ^^. T_T. @@. (expression based on the. ^.^. eye shape). ^^;. 立. -_-;;; (^^) 政^-^ 治 -_-^ 大. -_-. ^___^. T.T. T___T. o.o. ‧ 國. 學. Note. Adapted from “Emoticon Style: Interpreting Diffrences in Emoticons Across Cultures” by J. Park, V. Barash, C. Fink, and M. Cha, 2013, Seventh International Conference on. ‧. Weblogs and Social Media, p. 468. Copyright 2013 by Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. Studies have reported that people from individualistic cultures read a. i n U. v. conversation partner’s emotions by “focusing on the zygomatic major (a muscle. Ch. engchi. around the mouth)”, while those from collectivistic cultures infer their partner’s emotions by “detecting movement of the orbicularis oculi (a muscle around the eyes)” (Ekman, 1992, as cited in Park et al., 2014, p. 338). Based on these findings, crosscultural psychologists have emphasized two points. Firstly, as the mouth takes up a larger area of the face than the eyes, this means that a change in mouth shape is more easily noticeable as compared to a change in eye shape. Secondly, since the zygomatic major is a larger muscle than the orbicularis oculi, it is easier to consciously control the shape of the mouth than of the eyes (Ekman, 1992, as cited in Park et al., 2014).. !. !. !.

(30) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 21!. In general, individualistic cultures emphasize the self, while collectivistic cultures highlight shared values on a society (Hofstede et al., 1991). For this reason, people from individualistic cultures are more likely to be trained to express their feelings through explicit cues (Park et al., 2014), just like how the American students reacted when they watched films of surgical procedures, whether they were alone or with someone else. Facial expressions of emotion are more direct and less constrained. In contrast, people within collectivistic cultures are taught to suppress. 政治大 This explains the change in facial expression for the Japanese students when the 立. personal feelings and convey them indirectly through subtle cues (Park et al., 2014).. ‧ 國. 學. experimenter was present. Facial expressions of emotion are more indirect and less explicit. After understanding how people from different cultures usually express their. ‧. feelings, we can infer why eye-oriented expressions are emphasized in collectivistic. sit. y. Nat. cultures. Since the eyes take up a smaller area of the face, a change in eye shape. io. al. er. would not be as obvious. On the other hand, as people from individualistic cultures. v. n. are taught to express their feelings more directly, a change in mouth shape and the. Ch. engchi. i n U. movement of the zygomatic major would be an easier cue to allow for the reading of emotions. Emotions displayed by American and Japanese students with the presence of the experimenter, correspond to the way emoticons are formed with the emphasis on the mouth or eyes, depending on whether these people belong to an individualistic or collectivistic society. People from individualistic cultures use horizontal emoticons; those that emphasize the shape of the mouth while people from collectivistic cultures use vertical emoticons; those that highlight the shape of the eyes in CMC.. !. !. !.

(31) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 22!. Since this research aims to examine the style of emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users, the following research questions are posed: RQ1: What is the usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons in general? Is there a significant difference in the usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons by Singaporean and Taiwanese users? RQ2: What kinds of designs are used to represent the eyes and mouths of emoticons? a.. 政治大 difference regarding the design of eyes used by Singaporean and 立. How are eyes represented in general? Is there a significant. ‧ 國. 學. Taiwanese users?. b.. How are mouths represented in general? Is there a significant. ‧. difference regarding the design of mouths used by Singaporean. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. and Taiwanese users?. n. Language and Emoticons. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. While geography may be one of the factors that determine the style of emoticons, other researchers have noted that language has a higher impact. In a study done by Park et al. (2013), they have found that people who live in English-speaking countries and countries where English is in common usage with local languages tend to utilize horizontal style emoticons. Figure 1 shows the extent to which countries differ in their rates of adopting horizontal and vertical emoticons. The yellow portion in each pie chart represents the percentage of the horizontal style, and the green portion represents that of the vertical style. Countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, United States, Netherlands, Singapore, Philippines, Mexico, Spain,. !. !. !.

(32) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 23!. Italy, Indonesia, Germany and France all favor horizontal style emoticons. Interestingly, although Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia are located in Asia, they showed similar usage patterns to other English-speaking countries and countries where English is in common usage with local languages studied in the research. On the contrary, since both Japan and South Korea are neither English-speaking countries nor English is in common usage with local languages, people from these two countries prefer using vertical style emoticons instead. In addition, it is also important. 政治大. to note that horizontal style emoticons do take up a substantial portion on the pie chart. 立. Australia. Canada. US. Netherlands. ‧ y. Italy. io. Style Horizontal Vertical. sit. Spain. ! !. er. Nat. Singapore Philippines Mexico. Germany a lFrance Japan South Koreai v n Ch U engchi. n. Indonesia. 學. UK. ‧ 國. for Japan and South Korea too.. !. Figure 1. Different emoticon usage by countries. Adapted from “Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emotions Across Cultures” by J. Park, V. Barash, C. Fink, and M. Cha, 2013, Seventh International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, p. 470. Copyright 2013 by Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.. Language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas; it fundamentally shapes our perception. Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist who developed the theory of linguistic relativity proposed that the structure of a. !. !. !.

(33) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 24!. language affects the ways in which its speakers conceptualize their world, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes (Lutz, 1987). Insofar as languages differ, speakers too differ in how they perceive and act in objectively similar situations (Whorf, 1956, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). Linguist, philosophers, anthropologist, and psychologists have long been interested in whether the languages we speak shape the way we understand the world. This interest has been fueled in large part by the observation that different languages talk about the world differently.. 政治大 States has only two nouns in their language for everything that flies. One noun refers 立. For instance, Hopi, a tribe of Native American people of the Southwestern United. ‧ 國. 學. to birds while the other is used for everything else, including aeroplanes, kites, and bees (Train, 2007). Thus, the Hopi people will interpret all flying things in terms of. ‧. either of these two nouns – either a bird or a non-bird. Yet on the other hand, English-. sit. y. Nat. speaking people will perceive aeroplanes differently to the Hopi. When English-. io. al. er. speaking people think about an aeroplane, they will view it with greater complexity of. v. n. thought since they have more cognitive categories for aeroplanes than do the Hopi,. Ch. engchi. i n U. for example jumbo jet, concorde, biplane, and bomber (Train, 2007). Boroditsky (2001) examined how different ways of talking about physical space and time in English and Mandarin Chinese shape people’s thoughts. This may be useful in explaining the differences in style of emoticons among users due to the influence of language. Space and time in English. In English, we predominantly use front and back terms to talk about time (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). Examples in Figure 2 show how front and back terms are used in sentences. On the whole, English mostly talks about space and time as if it were on a horizontal plane. !. !. !.

(34) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 25!. SPACE Take three steps forward The dumpster is located behind the store TIME Good times ahead Put the hardships behind us Shift meetings forward Push deadlines back Eat desserts after we are done with our meal. 政治大. Submit the application before the deadline. 立. Figure 2. Example spatial and temporal uses of front and back terms in English.. ‧ 國. 學. Space and time in Mandarin Chinese. In Mandarin, front and back terms for. ‧. space and time are also common (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001).. io. Examples in Figure 3 show how. English translation underneath each sentence.. !. !. !. Ch. y. are used in Mandarin sentences with. n. al. and. (back) to talk about space and time.. sit. (front) and. engchi. er. Nat. Mandarin speakers use the terms. i n U. v.

(35) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 26!. SPACE. There is an American restaurant in front of the school’s main gate. The teacher is standing behind the desk TIME. I plan to apply for graduate school after completing my undergraduate degree. 政治大. I have to submit my assignment before five in the evening. 立. Figure 3. Example spatial and temporal uses of. (front) and. (back) in Mandarin and. ‧ 國. 學. their English translations.. ‧. In addition to front and back terms, Mandarin speakers also use vertical. n. al. (up) and. (down) are used in Mandarin. er. io. Examples in Figure 4 show how. sit. y. Nat. metaphors to talk about space and time (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001).. i n U. v. sentences to describe space and time with English translation underneath each sentence.. !. !. !. Ch. engchi.

(36) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 27!. SPACE. The wall is covered with her photos. The falling snow envelops the road TIME. Last (or previous) month. Next (or following) month. 立. 政治大. Figure 4. Example spatial and temporal uses of. (up) and. (down) in Mandarin and their. ‧ 國. 學. English translations.. ‧. Although in English, vertical terms can also be used to talk about space and. sit. y. Nat. time, for example “the meeting is coming up” or “hand down knowledge from. n. al. or. er. io. generation to generation”, these uses are not nearly as common as it is the use of. i n U. v. in Mandarin (Chun, 1997a, 1997b; Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). In. Ch. engchi. summary, both English and Mandarin speakers use horizontal terms to talk about space and time. Additionally, Mandarin speakers commonly use the vertical terms and. . Apart from the way physical space and time is described in English and. Mandarin, another example to illustrate how language has a greater impact in determining the style of emoticons among users could be due to the difference in orthography between languages. Traditionally, Mandarin is written vertically in columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new. !. !. !.

(37) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 28!. column starting to the left of the preceding one. In modern times, it has become increasingly common for Mandarin to be written horizontally, from left to right, with successive rows going from top to bottom, under the influence of European languages such as English (Dong, 2009). On the other hand, unlike Mandarin which can be written and understood both in horizontal and vertical ways, English can only be written horizontally. Referring back to Figure 1, people living in English-speaking countries and. 政治大 utilized horizontal style emoticons. This could be due to the way physical space and 立. countries where English is in common usage with local languages predominantly. ‧ 國. 學. time is described in English and the way the language is written. English mainly uses horizontal relations (front and back terms) to explain space and time and the language. ‧. can only be written horizontally, therefore influencing the style of emoticons used. In. sit. y. Nat. comparison, the use of vertical and horizontal emoticons takes up a substantial portion. io. al. er. on the pie chart for Japan and South Korea (Figure 1). Both countries, similar to. v. n. Taiwan, are neither English-speaking countries nor countries where English is in. Ch. engchi. i n U. common usage with local languages. Although we do not have statistics regarding Mandarin speakers’ usage of emoticons in CMC at the moment, in the case where the language is similar to Japanese and Korean, whereby they were traditionally languages written vertically, and then evolved to being written horizontally in modern times, and as well as Mandarin uses both horizontal relations (front and back terms) and vertical relations (up and down) to explain physical space and time, there could be a possibility that the patterns of emoticons usage by Taiwanese users might be similar to the users from Japan and South Korea.. !. !. !.

(38) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 29!. Effects of Language Structure on Interpretation Current literature does not mention the effects of language structure on people’s interpretation of emoticons. On a similar note, there was a research that discussed the effects of language structure on human experience of direction. Suppose you want to give someone directions for getting to your house. You might say: “After the traffic lights, take the first left, then the second right, and then you’ll see a white house in front of you. Our door is on the right.” In theory, you could also say: “After. 政治大 see a white house directly to the east. Ours is the southern door.” These two sets of 立. the traffic lights, drive north, and then on the second crossing drive east, and you’ll. ‧ 國. 學. directions may describe the same route, but they rely on different systems of coordinates. The first uses “egocentric coordinates”, which depend on our own. ‧. bodies: a left-right axis and a front-back axis orthogonal to it (Deutscher, 2010, para.. sit. y. Nat. 14). The second system uses fixed “geographic directions”, which do not rotate with. io. al. er. us wherever we turn (para. 14). Even though geographic directions are useful when it. v. n. comes to hiking, egocentric coordinates “completely dominate our speech” (para. 15),. Ch. engchi. i n U. as it feels so much easier and more natural. Instead of using a map or a compass to work the directions out, egocentric coordinates are based on our own bodies and our immediate visual fields (Deutscher, 2010). However, it has been found that not all languages conform to what we have always taken as simply “natural”. A remote Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu Yimithirr, from north Queensland does not use egocentric coordinates (such as left, right, in front of, or behind) to describe the position of objects at all but relies on cardinal directions instead (Deutscher, 2010). If people from the aboriginal tribe want you to move over on the car seat to make room, they would say, “Move a bit to the. !. !. !.

(39) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 30!. east” (Deutscher, 2010). To tell you where exactly they left something in your house, they would say, “I left it on the southern edge of the western table” (Deutscher, 2010). Even when shown a film on television, they gave descriptions of it based on the orientation of the screen. If the television was facing north, and a man on the screen was approaching, they would say that he was “coming northward” (Deutscher, 2010).! Any form of direction in terms of egocentric coordinates would leave then disoriented and confused.!Hence, this shows that speakers of different languages tend to think and. 政治大 Using the above example and applying it to the study of emoticons, since 立. talk about the world differently depending on the structure of language they use.!. ‧ 國. 學. English, unlike Mandarin, does not describe physical space and time in vertical terms and that the language cannot be written vertically, the following research questions. ‧. are posed:. sit. y. Nat. RQ3: How does language background affect Singaporean users’ interpretation. io. al. er. of Taiwanese users’ commonly used emoticons?. v. n. RQ4: How does language background affect Taiwanese users’ interpretation. Ch. engchi. i n U. of Singaporean users’ commonly used emoticons? RQ5: What are the factors that can be used to predict the style of emoticons in CMC?. !. !. !.

(40) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 31!. Methodology Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this research. Quantitative research method was in the form of a self-administered online survey questionnaire whereas qualitative research method was in the form of a focus group discussion. The purpose of this research is twofold: firstly, to gain an overall understanding about the usage rate and representation of emoticons between Singaporean and Taiwanese users. Secondly, to understand the factors leading to the. 政治大 as the influence of language on the recognition and interpretation of emoticons 立 similarities and/or differences in usage rate and representation of emoticons, as well. ‧ 國. ‧. Pilot Study. 學. between Singaporean and Taiwanese users.. sit. y. Nat. A pilot study was conducted in October 2014 to look at how users from. io. al. er. Singapore and Taiwan constructed emoticons. 10 respondents from each country were. v. n. selected to do a survey. Respondents had to list down the kind of emoticons they. Ch. engchi. i n U. would type in their texts if they were to express the following emotions of disgust, sadness, happiness, anger, surprise, and fear (Appendix A and Appendix B). These six emotions came from a research done by an American psychologist, Paul Ekman, who showed pictures of many different facial expressions to observers from different cultures (Brazil, Borneo, Japan, New Guinea and the United States), who were asked to judge which emotion was portrayed on the face (Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen, 1969). Thirty photographs with various facial expressions, each with a pure display of a single emotion was presented to the observers. If emotional expressions were universal, there would be high agreement within and across cultures. !. !. !.

(41) ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS. 32!. in judgments. If emotional expressions were culture-specific, there might be an agreement within a culture, but disagreement across cultures. Results revealed agreement both within and across cultures for these six emotional expressions – disgust, sadness, happiness, anger, surprise, and fear. These data were the first systematic evidence for the universality of emotions and their expressions (Ekman et al., 1969). According to the results from Hofstede’s individualism scale, Singapore has a. 政治大 previously, a low score on the individualism scale would signify that a country 立 score of 20 whereas Taiwan has a score of 17 (Hofstede et al., 1991). As mentioned. ‧ 國. 學. belongs to a collectivist society. Based on the scores, we would expect users from Singapore and Taiwan to use vertical style emoticons. However, scores from the. ‧. individualism scale did not correspond to the style of emoticons Singaporean and. sit. y. Nat. Taiwanese users were expected to use in the pilot test even though both countries are. io. al. er. collectivist societies. Results from the pilot test showed that in terms of the. v. n. orientation of emoticons, Singaporean users tend to use horizontal style emoticons. Ch. engchi. i n U. while Taiwanese users would prefer using vertical style emoticons to express each of the six emotions. Emoticons gathered from the pilot test were subsequently used as answer choices for the actual survey questionnaire where respondents were given a list of 30 answer choices to choose from (Appendix C and Appendix D). These 30 emoticons were a combination of the most commonly used emoticons for each of the six universal emotions, as indicated by participants from the pilot test, and it included both horizontal and vertical emoticons. Respondents were asked to choose the. !. !. !.